In the Nature of Many Questions
by Andaliri
Summary: You'd think that everything would settle down after the credits roll to a stop. But there are many other things that left us hanging and whining for more. Well, that irritates Rikku, too. Join her as she drags Gippal and everyone else into the mess!
1. In the Nature of a Prologue

I've been working on the idea of this for a few months since I finished the game, and now I've finally found the time to post it, school and all. Funny, huh? Anyway, here's to hoping the demons of out-of-character-ness keep their noses out of it.

In the Nature of a Prologue:

It was morning! Warm, sunny, glorious yellow morning! 

Flinging away the heavy blankets necessary to survive the freezing world of the desert night, Rikku stretched out her arms, yawning expansively and nearly cracking her jaw to do it. 

Rubbing her jaw, she charged up, stumbling a little on the blankets she had thrown back, and hopped out of the tent. 

Rikku staggered back as the full blast of the sun in its blinding glory lanced through her eyes and daggered into her brain. 

"Gaah..." 

There was a bit of laughter, and Rikku turned around, hands defiantly planted on her hips and eyes streaming from the sun's greeting. Although she couldn't see much (aside from sparks of dancing red blotches), she knew who was laughing. 

"Not funny, Nhadala," she whined, stamping her foot and blinking away furiously. 

"I fully agree," the blonde Al Bhed woman replied, chuckling. 

(Although, come to think of it, practically all Al Bhed were blonde, so that could have just been described as the Al Bhed woman instead of wasting a few more bytes of space) 

"Then why are you still laughing?" Rikku demanded dramatically. "Do you find something entertaining about this?" 

"Actually, yes," the mirthfully amused Nhadala answered. "Oddly enough, yes, I do. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that it happens every morning, without fail." 

"It's not my fault." Was that a tent? Rikku's eyes began focus a bit more. Ah, yes, the desert was yellow. Bright, sun-drenched yellow. Lucky bits of sand were born without eyes.

For some reason, the image of the whole desert flinching in pain when the sun rose tickled her sense of humor. The cool wind of the dawn, and then—AAAAGGGHH!!!! The sun!!

Aherm. Anyway.

"There's a reason we Al Bhed wear goggles, you know. They're fancy and stylish and all, but they're not completely useless." 

"You've made your point," Rikku grumbled, rubbing away at her eyes. The slightly uncomfortable feeling of having her eyeballs roasting in their sockets slowly receded, and she saw the Al Bhed woman grinning at her. 

"Don't sweat it, Rikku." Nhadala patted the younger girl's arm. "It'll sink in one day. For now, you can bask in the fact that your noble and daily sacrifices of dignity bring smiles to our hearts." 

Rikku laughed. "I hate you." 

"'Course you do. Just doing my job."   
  


It's been, what, four years since the defeat of Sin? One year since they busted up Vegnagun? Rikku couldn't really remember. The days sort of melted into some weird mix of work and sandy sandals in the desert. 

(Was that why they were called sandals? Were they designed to gather sand? Rikku found that getting sand in her toes was inevitable whenever she wore 'em.) 

After their initial victory celebration of the second time they saved the world (which didn't quite last as long as the first one, since most people didn't really have a clue what Vegnagun was), things pretty much went back to what passed for normal, in her opinion, except maybe for the fact that Tidus finally decided to come back from wherever he was to hang out with them again. 

Which was a perfectly perfect decision but not that perfect, Rikku concluded, since hardly anything assigned to either of the two lovebirds ever got done anymore. It wasn't that Tidus and Yuna were far too mushy now that they were reunited again. Actually, Rikku and the others were wishing that they would just get to that part already. 

Absolutely nothing was happening between them, really. Which Rikku observed was absolutely absurd. 

(Tobli did have a charming way of speaking, she also concluded conclusively.) 

Yuna and Tidus were so busy tiptoeing around each other that being around them was an invitation to frustrated hair pulling. Honestly, there were far too many times when Rikku gave some thought to locking them in a room together. 

Anyway, since their second epic victory over everything evil and extremely ugly (Shuyin wasn't really any of those, though, come to think of it), the Gullwings more or less drifted apart, in a sense. 

Surprisingly, it was Brother who first decided to leave. He wasn't very articulate about why he was leaving (most likely because he hadn't worked idioms into his Basic yet), but he promised that he would be back. Rikku suspected that, having lost all of his chances of winning Yuna (which consisted of mostly negative something to some impossibly enormous number), Brother had turned his interest onto some other unlucky girl. 

Next to leave was Paine (which didn't surprise Rikku very much.) After all, she had found what she wanted—her memories and all that. She didn't really bother to explain why she was leaving or what she was gonna do when she left, but Rikku had a feeling that that wasn't the last they'd be seeing of Paine. 

Well, after that, everyone just sort of drifted apart. Yuna and Tidus went off to live on Besaid (in separate houses, for crying out loud). Rikku pitied the people of Besaid—there was nothing more agonizing than watching the two of them attempting to hold a coherent conversation.

Shinra went on to become the Sphere Break champion of Spira, totally trouncing that fellow in the funny hat with all the heavy R's. Of course, the ambitious little Wunderkind didn't stop there. He set himself up as one of the leading pioneers of international communication, with his glitchy little commsphere thingies.

Buddy flew off in the Celsius, going who knows where. Rikku thought that if he could spend the rest of his days flying around in it, he'd wet himself silly in all the happiness. 

And here she was. She was hanging out in Bikanel, with Nhadala and Benzo and the others. It was really nice, she thought. It was relaxing to hang out with the Al Bhed again, especially in the desert. If there was one place Rikku loved the most in all of Spira, it would most definitely be the desert. Not just because it was in her blood (although that might have had something to do with it, come to think of it). 

It was Home. Every single grain of it was home. Even if the fortress the Al Bhed had lived in was destroyed, it really was nothing more than a place to sleep when night came along because they spent most of their days popping around the desert, so the Al Bhed weren't really worried—much. In fact, it hadn't taken much effort for the Al Bhed to rebuild home—it was done within a year after being neglected. 

Kinda useless, if you think about it, since hardly any Al Bhed chose to live there. It was empty, but for the enterprising merchants and other visitors to the Bikanel desert. In the three years since Home was taken apart, most of the Al Bhed figured out that it was much more fun to live in the open desert than to clutter around in one measly tower. 

(Home wasn't exactly measly, but if you compare it to the desert, it kinda shrinks in comparison) 

As a result, the Al Bhed now wandered the desert, setting up digs for the fun and excitement of finding new machina and living the desert life. Which involved lots of sand.

Even mornings like that one up there made her love the desert—

Was there was any better place in Spira to get a scalding eyeburn in the early morning? Hardly.


	2. In the Nature of a Wake Up Call

Hah...almost forgot about this one. Well, I got a little put-off by the summary. It's not exactly accurate with the idea I had in mind, but whatever. I'll fix it when I'm not lazy, so you'll be looking at the same summary for the next couple of months.

In the Nature of a Wake-Up Call:

"What a find!" Rikku crowed triumphantly, stretching her arms in satisfaction as the wind whipped her wild hair against her face.

"I can't believe it myself," Nhadala agreed excitedly, driving the hover over a particularly large dune for no particular reason except for the fun of it.

"Miss Nhadala, I have to ask that you not do that again," Picket complained. "It rather disrupts the connections I have with this hover. That might make for a confusing ride the next time someone takes this hover out."

"A bit of roughing it out in the desert would do a lot of good to some of the good-for-nothing bums back at the camp," Nhadala said innocently, and then laughed.

Nhadala had loosened up a lot since Rikku joined the digging teams—mostly because you either have to have a free disposition in dealing with Rikku at her best (or worst) or you have to be Paine.

And since no one could really match the way Paine could stare a constipated Elder Drake in the face without so much as a flinch, well...

 "I can't wait to tell Benzo about this!" Rikku grinned. "Can you imagine what we could dig up from there?"

During one of their customary rounds around the desert from the back of a hover, Picket had picked up some odd emanations coming from the sand below the central expanse, and digging around, Rikku and Nhadala had discovered an entrance leading down into a dark cavern underneath the desert.

"Benzo would wet his little Wunderkind pants with joy," Nhadala predicted. "I can already expect the—" She suddenly stopped.

"Hmm?" Rikku looked at her. "What's up, Nhadala? You aren't lost again, are you?"

Picket's mechanized voice seemed huffy. "Under _my_ guidance, no one on this hover can even _consider_ being lost. It's inconceivable!" It was odd to consider the fact that the little mechanism was actually offended.

"We're not lost," Nhadala said, regaining herself. "Not lost at all. Camp's over there."

Rikku peered around the hover and nearly fell off—which would probably add more insult to the stuffy Picket, so she refrained from doing so.

"Is that the Celsius?"

They were waiting for her at the entrance to the camp.

"Rikku! We've been waiting for you for hours!"

Brother had worked himself up into a fit, apparently. He was waving his arms around wildly and posing all over the camp, looking like the idiot he always was. He hadn't changed much.

Personality-wise, at least. He had finally discarded those ridiculous-looking suspenders for an actual belt, for one thing. His accent, however, was as humiliating as it always was.

"Thirty minutes," Shinra translated wryly.

The pint-sized genius still seemed to be exactly the same. Becoming filthy rich didn't show, particularly because he still wore the dirty Wunderkind suit he seemed so proud of. He was sitting on a piece of wreckage, calmly watching Brother's antics with obvious entertainment.

"How long was he ranting?" Rikku whispered to him, ignoring her brother's flailing.

"Thirty minutes," came Shinra's predictable reply.

 "We went all over the desert looking for your camp and when we found it, everyone was so rude!" Brother went on, dramatically pointing an accusing finger to the other workers, most of which seemed on the brink of exploding into a murderous rampage.

A voice came from the hatch of the great air ship. "In other words, he made an absolute idiot of himself." Buddy swung down from the ship, looking a little resigned, which was the typical reaction of a person who had spent far too much time in the range of Brother's voice.

"Buddy!" Rikku squealed and launched herself at him.

"Hey, Rikku," Buddy said around a mouthful of Rikku hair. "I see the sun hasn't blasted out your brains yet." He threw a meaningful glance to where Brother was doing some sort of dance—if it could be called that.

She grinned up at him. "If it's genetic, I seem to be immune."

"We'll see," he laughed. Buddy was more or less the same—his hair was a little longer, and he was a little taller than she remembered, but he was still Buddy.

He looked up. "Hey Nhadala," he greeted the woman, smiling. "Sorry, but we had to bring him along."

She shook her head. "It's no real problem to me. Rikku sort of brings that same effect around here as well."

"Me?? I'm not in any way like Brother!!"

Nhadala ignored the suddenly indignant girl and went on, looking a little amused. "You probably shouldn't keep him here long, though." She grimaced, looking at the other fed up people in the camp. "I think they're sharpening their knives."

Shinra was listening to them and he let out a little chuckle. "I give them five minutes."

"Well, well, well," Rikku said, suddenly interested. "Isn't that an idea?" Her eyes shone speculatively.

"Not a good one," Buddy said firmly. "You don't want to have to deal with any guilty feelings later."

"Who said I'd feel guilty?" she asked innocently.

"Never mind," he repeated.

"Aw, you're no fun," Rikku kicked at the sand.

Brother had taken no notice of their discussion, apparently. "—but now you're here and—Rikku? Rikku are you listening to me? I don't think you are, and you will regret it!" His voice rose several notches, and the other diggers visibly tightened their hands around their daggers.

"So, Brother, what brings you here?" Rikku hastily asked, giving the workers a pleading look.

"Well," the Al Bhed drew himself up importantly. "Now that you ask, we're here to bring you to Luca, Rikku."

"What?" Rikku blinked. "I like it here." Her eyes narrowed. "Is this Pops' idea? Why does he want me back? Why are you running errands for him, Brother?"

"I am NOT running errands for our father!" Brother stamped his foot on the ground, bringing up a little billow of sand.

"I think you are!" she snapped back. "I will NOT go back!" She stamped her foot, sending up bigger clouds of sand.

"Yes, you will!" Stamp. Cough.

"No, I won't!" Stamp. Cough.

"She says they aren't in any way similar," Nhadala rolled her eyes (although you actually couldn't see her rolling them, because of the goggles, you see—which were pretty handy at this point, what with all the stamping and the flying sand). "And I'm a Ronso."

Seeing the steadily growing irritation on the faces of the other workers, Buddy immediately stepped into his familiar role of the intermediary. "Hey, guys, cool down."

"She doesn't want to go!" Brother complained.

"And you can't make me!" Rikku stubbornly crossed her arms.

"Unless we told you that Cid had nothing to do with it," Shinra said reasonably. "In which case, I believe the ground you're standing on seems a little shaky. Figuratively, I mean. Sand isn't really shaky, but it isn't really stable either. Perfect for glassblowing, though."

Rikku blinked.

"And," Shinra went on. "Now that you're open to the idea of taking a trip to Luca since you have no reason not to, familial strife aside, you might want to consider the fact that Yuna and Paine will also be going to Luca for the grand opening of Spira's International Museum of Recorded History. It's a worldwide event with people from everywhere in Spira coming to take a look. Something of a historical milestone, I suppose. The fact that you're a specially invited guest, being a Gullwing, might also convince you to go, because I'm sure that there will be certain benefits available to you, being one of the major contributors to the birth of the Museum."

Nhadala stared at the little kid, obviously wondering how he could say all that in a single breath.

"Me?" Rikku still seemed a little bewildered.

Shinra nodded. "Affirmative. Some time after you left, we decided to donate all the rest of the spheres we had acquired during our little bout as the Gullwings to the joint project between New Yevon—whatever it wants to be called—and the Youth League. And since we had stacked up quite a cache of spheres, we're one of the major contributors to the gathering collection of historical spheres they will showcase at the museum. Also, during the Yunapalooza, although we didn't actually sell out tickets, we still earned a bit of the proceeds from the vendors who set up around the Thunder Plains—they're very grateful to Yuna for towing in all the customers. Since we weren't really creative enough to spend all that money, and since Brother wasn't allowed to get to it, we just gave it all away to the Museum project.

"So if you think about it," the boy said in tones that indicated that he was running out of breath, "we're pretty much the major sponsor for the whole shebang." He paused. "Did I say shebang?"

There was a short moment of silence where everyone adjusted, either to the idea of going to Luca, or to the notion that Shinra just said shebang.

Rikku's face lit up, the first to change from the horrified/confused/interested expressions ranged on everyone else's faces. "Yuna and Paine are going, too? All right! I'll start packing!" She turned and disappeared in a cloud of sand.

"Luca, here I come! Hahaa!"

"She sure changed her mind quick," Nhadala noted.

Brother gave Shinra a dirty look. "Sometimes, you are so smart, you make my teeth hurt!" he declared.

Shinra looked back at him. "Only you could actually manage something like that."

"Oh?" Brother grinned, looking a little proud. "Just me, hehe. I can do what no one else can."

"Yes you can," the evil little Wunderkind told him. "Why don't you go check on the turbines, Brother? We'll be leaving soon."

Brother looked insulted. "That is an unimportant job for someone like me! Why don't _you_ do it, if you're so smart?"

"I'm just a kid."

Well, there was nothing Brother could say to that. Other people, perhaps, could have come up with something to fire back at the little smartmouthed kid, but other people aren't Brother (thankfully).

Buddy sighed.

"It's a theory I'm working on," Shinra explained to Nhadala and Buddy as Brother walked off, wildly gesticulating to himself. "If you don't know that something is impossible, is it possible for you to actually do it? Brother's the perfect test subject. Ignorance is bliss, normally, but in this case—" there was an evil little chuckle. "Well, we'll see. I'll keep you posted."

"Thanks," Buddy said dryly. "I think."

"Well, then," Nhadala said, straightening a little. "Luca, you say?"

"Yup," he nodded. "They were thinking of using that new building in Kilika, but they decided that it was too risky to hold it there. Typhoons and all. Why?" he looked at her curiously. "You thinking of coming?"

The blonde woman shrugged. "It's a thought."

"You wanna get out pf the desert, eh?"

"No, actually." She gave him an arch look. "Unlike some _other _Al Bhed I know, I can live in the desert without the sun beating my brains out—the heat doesn't bother me."

Buddy winced. "All right, already. So I don't like the temperature around here. Can you blame me?"

"Wuss. That's why you always hid in Home where the big bad sun couldn't get you."

"Hey." It was Shinra. He was looking at them, expression inscrutable underneath the goggles. "Would you two stop flirting for a moment and start getting the ship ready for the trip? Brother's an incompetent—he probably doesn't know that it's impossible to stab yourself with a turbine rag, either, and by the looks of things, he's probably willing to try it."

_Flirting_???

Buddy instantly turned on his heel and hurried toward the Celsius as Nhadala practically fled to the camps.

_Stupid little Wunderkind.___

"Hey," Shinra said again, sounding hatefully amused. "If Nhadala's coming, wouldn't you say that we're a little short on sleeping space? You wouldn't mind, would you, Buddy?" There was a little raspy Shinra chuckle.

_Dirty little Wunderkind._


	3. In the Nature of a Landing Session

Spur of the moment chapter. Didn't really plan to actually put it in, but I sort of like this chapter, so...

In the Nature of a Landing Session

"There it is! There it is!"

Buddy craned his neck, the stress and fatigue apparent behind his goggles. "Rikku, I can't see! Get out of the way, will you?"

Rikku rolled her eyes.  "It's not like it'll vanish 'coz you can't see it, Buddy," she commented. "'Sides, you've seen Besaid Island tons of times before, so I don't see why you're so excited." She looked back out. "Ooh! I think I can see the village! I can see Keepa." She laughed. "Haha. No, it's just a rock."

"I can say the same about you, you know," he retorted, leaning to one side in a futile attempt to see past Rikku and her abominably obstructive hair. "You've been to Besaid more than I have. Please stop blocking the view, Rikku." Bolts, how he hated landings. He gave her a pained look. "I really need to see the island."

Rikku stared absently out the thick glass view. "It doesn't really look like it changed much."

Buddy sighed. "Just move, Rikku. There's another view over there."

"But it's not as nice as this one!" she protested, turning around to stick her tongue out at him.

Buddy slowly clenched and unclenched his fists. He absolutely _hated_ landings. "Rikku," he said in as steady a voice as he could manage. "Unless you want me crashing this baby into Besaid Temple, you really should step back and let me look."

Rikku gave him a startled look and quickly scampered away from the window. "I thought the computer took care of the landing," she protested. "It always has before."

"This time I'm landing the ship," Buddy explained patiently, just glad to have her out of the way. "All those other times, we just dropped you guys off and flew elsewhere until you contacted us."

"So why can't the computer take care of this one?" she asked curiously. "Isn't it the same thing?"

"Do you really know so little or are you just naturally this stupid?" came Picket's robotic tin-can voice—and for a robotic tin-can voice, he sure could make it sound irritatingly snotty. Smug little hunk of junk.

She stuck her tongue out at him, too.

Nhadala wore the same exasperated expression present on Buddy's face as she reprimanded her robot. "Be nice."

From the central pilot's seat which he always insisted was his, Brother demanded in a sulky tone, "Did we really have to bring him along?"

He and Picket had been chewing each other out within seconds after the take-off (which was a record, since Brother was usually busy wetting his pants to be anything other than pitiful), which explained rather well the Buddy's and Nhadala's haggard appearances and Rikku's surprisingly (or perhaps unsurprisingly) upbeat disposition.

Nhadala winced- a fact everyone could observe if they wanted to because once she saw there was no sand anywhere in the ship to blast into her eyes and permanently blind her left eye, she took it off, but kept it close by, just in case.

She was kind of prissy in an obsessive way like that.

Nhadala turned to Rikku after a short mental debate on which case to deal with: Brother and Picket—too futile, nothing could pry the two apart from their scream fest—or Rikku—unimaginably annoying, but sporadically rational, so...

"Besaid is an island village," she told Rikku. "Kilika is miles away, so it's relatively isolated, what with the water surrounding the island to close it in. The village is primitive, and not a very tech savvy one, at that."

Rikku blinked. "So?"

"What she means," Buddy spoke up from where he stared intently through the window, "is that Besaid doesn't have any of the advanced radiowave intercepting technology to autopilot a landing through mere computer calculation of global positioning and physical, or logistical, rather, speculation."

The Al Bhed girl's eyes lit up. "Ohh," she nodded brightly.

"_That_, you get?" Nhadala couldn't really believe it. Rikku's only response was a helpless little shrug and a typically cheesy grin.

"I'll get right to it," Shinra promised, looking up from his computer console. "Once we land, that is. It shouldn't be too hard to whip up a landing station." He paused thoughtfully. "At the beach, maybe, there's enough space there to handle the Celsius, but the Airship is a different matter..." He trailed off contemplatively. "Hmm..."

Buddy gave the boy a startled look. "I didn't really mean—"

But Picket suddenly interrupted him, flying from where he had been arguing with Brother with an arrogant little flicker of his jets. "The Celsius is tilted seven point twenty-three degrees too much to the north if you want to land this ship without creating gouges the size of a hover across her hull," he informed the pilot. "Unless, of course, you don't mind messy landings. I, however, have always found them quite the mark of an inexperienced pilot."

Buddy's fingers twitched, but before he could say or do anything to the supercilious mess of spare parts, Shinra piped up, objecting to the robot's calculations. "The angle is perfectly fine! It's the velocity of the ship that'll bring it crashing down. The momentum will carry it," he paused, calculating fast enough to counter the speed of light, "about seventeen inches too forward, and not to mention the chaos that implicates when we land at all."

"It's the ship's _degree_, human boy, and that's seventeen point _eighty-four_ inches," Picket informed him in a patronizing tone, hovering oppressively at the boy's shoulder.

Rikku rolled her eyes. "Nerds," she muttered. She wondered, though, why Picket hadn't been so abrasive when they first tromped into Bikanel as sphere hunters. The little ball of short wires had been annoying, but not _this _annoying.

The two were still at it. "I rounded it off, you hunk of scrap metal," Shinra shot back, his fingers flying across the console. "And the degrees make up for the wind speed—we're flying too high, and you know it."

"The head wind coming in from alongside the starboard isn't half as quick as the tail wind, and that's dragging it back!" Picket snapped hotly. "And we aren't flying too _high_, we're flying too _low_."

"We are _not_!"

"We are!"

"Not!"

"Are!"

"Not!"

The ship began to tremble a little. Buddy quickly ran over the engines—no, just turbulence. But wait, how—?

"See? I told you we'd crash!"

"We will _not_! And your little degrees bit makes no headway!"

"Oh, it does _too_, you little baby!"

Nhadala tried to pull them apart. "Hey, none of that really matters—or at least, it doesn't make sense."

Brother, however, drowned her out, with the triumphant (and obviously short-sighted) exclamation of, "Who cares if we crash? As long as we plow headfirst into the temple, so it'll be fun. We'll be perfectly fine!" He laughed cheerfully.

Buddy gave his friend a withering look. "Not on _my_ ship, you won't be."

"_My_ ship? It's _my_ ship! Why do you say it's yours?"

Buddy rubbed his temples. "Because you don't have the slightest clue on how to even start to learn how to fly a ship without autopilot, and Rikku, get back from there. You're blocking the view—again." He looked ready to explode.

"Ooh, sorry," Rikku apologized and skipped back. "I just wanted to take a closer look, and the view's not so good from back there, because all you can see is Brother's big ugly head."

"I can _too_ run a ship!" Brother howled. "And my head isn't as big as yours with all that undead yellow hair!"

"That's because you're prematurely going bald!" Rikku yelped, offended that he attacked her hair—it was sacred ground! Just like she never trespassed into snapping about his dorky Mohawk. Hair was an untouchable subject.

Okay, so maybe striking back with another hair jibe wasn't such a good idea.

"Rikku, how dare you??" he practically screeched.

Buddy closed his eyes. Ladies and gentlemen, it _was_ possible to get a hangover without ever consuming an alcoholic drink. All you need is one unhealthy dose of Cid's bratlings. Take a Shinra and a Picket and smash'em together, if you want the hallucinations.

"Would you two stop?" Nhadala was scolding the two obsessive little idiots at the back of the bridge. "Buddy will land us without any help from you two. He's done it before, I think, so we won't get too bruised."

Okay, now that, in Buddy's opinion, was a little offensive and totally uncalled for. What had he done to her? His head began to tremble along with the rest of the ship, and he had a feeling that he was making the same whining noise as well.

Or it was just Brother and Rikku.

"It's not my fault the little technological infant has no idea how to calculate a simple landing flight!" Picket was objecting.

"_Technological infant_?" Shinra repeated. "Well, this _technological infant _can have you dismantled in the span of time it would take you to calculate the velocity of a commsphere radio wave molecular transmitter on a G-level frequency!"

Picket tried to find something to say to that, but either way, he would lose, so he quickly dodged behind the weary Al Bhed woman. "Nhadala!" the bot cried. "This tinkerer is threatening me with bodily harm!"

There was a fascinating little tic in Buddy's right eye that Rikku had never seen before (hard to miss now, though) and found absolutely fascinating. It seemed to contort his whole face into this odd sort of expression which reminded her of a constipated sand worm she had seen once.

And, as she recalled, when the state of constipation dissipated from the worm's digestive system, things got real messy.

"Would everyone _PLEASE_ shut up and let me fly this thing _without_ all the 'helpful' advice??"

Smack in the face with the dried up constipation!

That stopped everyone in their tracks. Brother even forgot to whine for a moment—seeing someone so laid back as Buddy explode was a little scary for someone who hated hexapods and the like. Or just him.

"Um," Rikku decided to break the stunned silence. "Wouldn't you know it, that doggie that always wandered around in front of the temple has puppies?" She pointed out the window. "With spots and swishy tails."

Buddy turned to her, still looking decidedly murderous. "Rikku, get away from the view. How could you see if they have—"

And then it was a sort of funny moment (to Rikku, at least), when his face morphed from this crazy psycho expression into this totally pale and panicked one, with the eyes bugging out and all—well, they would be if she could see them, but she couldn't since he was wearing goggles and all.

It was a little understandable, she guessed. Buddy adored the Celsius, and he went ballistic (sort of, in a Buddy-esque kind of way) whenever anyone even _thought _of leaning on her newly polished surface. So if the thought of smudging the ship made him a little nuts, imagine what the actual event of it crashing would do to his sanity.

Buddy had every right to turn all pale and buggy—especially since the ship was heading straight toward the temple doors without any sign of slowing down.

Well, Rikku _did_ move out of the way a lot, so it wasn't her fault.

"Honestly, if you were going to crash the ship all along, why couldn't you let me stay here and look?"

Little note:

Okay, I just felt like writing something fun and absolutely pointless. I have no idea if whatever Shinra and Picket were yammering on about would actually be consistent in real-life piloting but it sounded almost smart, so whatever. Good enough for me.

Oh, and to those who want to pull my brains out through my nostrils with a hook pointed knife (XD) because Gippal isn't here yet, relax. I want to do it, too. Hah. I promised Gippal, so you'll get Gippal—later, though. But you can be sure he'll be popping in to help with my de-braining.

Mind informing me of any grammatical mistakes?

(Gee, it's so much better to write that word than say it. I always end up saying something like 'grammaretical' or whatever.)


End file.
